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I don't think that's really going to work. People won't list all their incentives, because some of them are implicit and others are embarrassing or "creepy". Ot

I don't think that's really going to work. People won't list all their incentives, because some of them are implicit and others are embarrassing or "creepy". Others will absolutely judge you for what incentivizes your actions, therefore hiding them is the status quo. If you say that your incentive for working out is to look good and be popular with the ladies then people will judge you for it, even if it's exactly the truth. If you say that you work out "for health" everyone will applaud you for what you're doing. And yet the outcome is going to be the same.

strbean 2y ago
I could be wrong, but I took the parent's comment to mean that we should design incentive structures transparently, instead of obscuring them or outright ignoring the whole concept when engineering society.
jprete 2y ago
At this point I'm so used to this that I mentally translate "for health" into "to look good for the opposite sex".
- ellyagg 2y ago
  It’s funny how those incentives are so well aligned.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  That's reductive, some of use are doing it to look good for the same sex!
Maken 2y ago
You got it backwards. It's not about being transparent about what you want to achieve, it's about being transparent about what others expect you to achieve on your current position.
- bmsan 2y ago
  To check my understanding: say your current position is "unemployed." You would think that the expectation for you is to "get a job", but to get a job is extremely difficult. You have to navigate an almost adversarial job market and recruiting process, often for months. It's essentially a massive negative incentive, considering all of the effort and grief involved. So, the incentives aren't aligned with the desired outcome; the skittishness of each individual hiring company to make sure that they don't get screwed by a bad hire has warped the entire dynamic. Is this a good example?

strbean 2y ago

I could be wrong, but I took the parent's comment to mean that we should design incentive structures transparently, instead of obscuring them or outright ignoring the whole concept when engineering society.

jprete 2y ago

At this point I'm so used to this that I mentally translate "for health" into "to look good for the opposite sex".

ellyagg 2y ago
It’s funny how those incentives are so well aligned.
tsimionescu 2y ago
That's reductive, some of use are doing it to look good for the same sex!

Maken 2y ago

You got it backwards. It's not about being transparent about what you want to achieve, it's about being transparent about what others expect you to achieve on your current position.

bmsan 2y ago
To check my understanding: say your current position is "unemployed." You would think that the expectation for you is to "get a job", but to get a job is extremely difficult. You have to navigate an almost adversarial job market and recruiting process, often for months. It's essentially a massive negative incentive, considering all of the effort and grief involved. So, the incentives aren't aligned with the desired outcome; the skittishness of each individual hiring company to make sure that they don't get screwed by a bad hire has warped the entire dynamic. Is this a good example?